More Breitbart Tributes, (or when 12 updates aren't enough!)

Like the con­spir­a­to­r­ial “dog whis­tle” of our sta­tist adver­saries’ night­mares, Breitbart’s pass­ing was a call-​to-​arms for the free­dom fight­ers to ratchet up our defense of the Shin­ing City. ”

I will update this post with a response to his post, “Liz Glover con­fronts Andrew Bre­it­bart and Dana Loesch over GOProud ban,” since I only just read it today. How­ever, I will point out that the fact that the rea­son she caught up with him was the dig­nity and respect he was show­ing to A Con­ser­v­a­tive Les­bian thor­oughly spoils the left­ist nar­ra­tive. I’m guess­ing the last thing she expected was to have that argu­ment directly with a con­ser­v­a­tive les­bian involved and fight­ing back, lit­er­ally shoulder-​to-​shoulder with Andrew Breitbart.

Andrew was con­stantly the tar­get of homo­pho­bic slurs from the tol­er­ant left.

Well. As a typ­i­cal aver­age nobody, can I just say? It’s awe­some when a big­ger voice speaks for you. And that’s what Andrew Bre­it­bart did. When nobody-ol’-me attended the Code Red anti-​Obamacare rally, and promptly got accused of ter­ri­ble racism, what good would my lit­tle tiny voice have done?

Not much. Enter Andrew Bre­it­bart, who offered $100,000 to any­one who could pro­vide evi­dence of this sup­posed out­burst of racism. Of course, no such evi­dence existed. Because it was a lie.

60 Min­utes won awards for hid­den cam­eras, but when he used the same tech­nique to embar­rass lib­er­als, such tac­tics were sud­denly pro­claimed eth­i­cally beyond the pale. The joke was on the scolds because they had to cover the sto­ries any­way. And the sto­ries got results. Con­gress defunded ACORN. Heads rolled at NPR. Andrew under­stood that news and argu­ments change pol­i­tics if you can get the news and argu­ments to the peo­ple — and if you don’t let those who don’t like what you say define you.

that I was older and with a longer career in the news biz meant noth­ing to him, and it shouldn’t have. He under­stood some­thing I didn’t — that the guild­like nature of media was about to shat­ter into a mil­lion pieces; gate­keep­ers like me (I was then edit­ing these pages) would have to rec­on­cile our­selves to the entry of ama­teurs who had some­thing new and pow­er­ful to con­tribute, or we’d be crushed by the shat­tered glass.

But his vision extended beyond any sin­gle duke-​out with any one Goliath. He was going after the whole Philis­tine gang. I remem­ber stand­ing with him on a cor­ner in West­wood for a good por­tion of one after­noon, lis­ten­ing to him describe his long-​term plans. He out­lined the unfold­ing of the Bigs, which had then just begun, and went on to dis­cuss the ways new media could break the Left’s stran­gle­hold on cul­ture and infor­ma­tion to give the Amer­i­can pub­lic access to some­thing closer to the truth. He even had a plan for a cul­tural think tank — a Great Good Place in Hol­ly­wood — where con­ser­v­a­tive artists could come for sup­port and pro­tec­tion from the black­lists and beat-​downs of the artis­tic estab­lish­ment. I would be the think tank’s first pres­i­dent, he told me, an idea I found sweetly amus­ing then but which only makes my heart hurt now.

He has built an empire, Every blog­ger who fights the fight is a part of it. Legal Insur­rec­tion proves that this is true:

Andrew lived in a world with­out restraints. He could be who he wanted to be, a lux­ury few blog­gers have, par­tic­u­larly those who blog under their own name and work for others.

I live in a world of restraints, and I envied Andrew’s free­dom more than you can know.

Andrew is irre­place­able, but we would serve his mem­ory well to aspire to more free­dom of thought and more free­dom of action.

I’ve often won­dered where to go with this blog. I now know.

To the left cel­e­brat­ing his death, peo­ple like William pick­ing up the flag and going for­ward unafraid is the great nightmare.

Andrew Breitbart’s entire mis­sion, both on Twit­ter and on his Big sites, was to say to the MSM, you don’t get the final word any­more. It’s now a con­ver­sa­tion. We’ll con­sider what you report, and how you report it, and deter­mine for our­selves how fac­tu­ally accu­rate it is. How well it matches up with our world­view. How well it matches up with mod­ern “liberalism’s” mis­sion state­ment that promises tol­er­ance, diver­sity and mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism — and if you can’t respect your neigh­bor, sim­ply because he dis­agrees with you on the size and role of gov­ern­ment, you’ve failed that mis­sion state­ment. And when you’ve failed those objec­tives, we’ll call you out.

Bre­it­bart knew instinc­tively, as peo­ple in Wash­ing­ton and most other places did not, that movies, tele­vi­sion pro­grams, and pop­u­lar music send out deeply polit­i­cal mes­sages every hour of every day. They shape the cul­ture, and then the cul­ture shapes pol­i­tics. Influ­ence those films and TV shows and songs, and you’ll even­tu­ally influ­ence politics.

The Left had known that for gen­er­a­tions, but on the Right, so many peo­ple in pol­i­tics thought only about pol­i­tics. To Bre­it­bart, that was folly. “The peo­ple who have money, every four years at the last pos­si­ble sec­ond, are told, ‘You need to give mil­lions of dol­lars, because these four coun­ties in Ohio are going to deter­mine the elec­tion,’” Bre­it­bart told the National Pol­icy Coun­cil in Octo­ber 2009. “I am say­ing, why didn’t we invest 20 years ago in a movie stu­dio in Hol­ly­wood, why didn’t we invest in cre­at­ing tele­vi­sion shows, why didn’t we cre­ate insti­tu­tions that would reflect and affirm that which is good about America?”

There is one video I shot of Andrew that directly reflects this. It never got the atten­tion it deserved.

It’s sig­nif­i­cant that Andrew picked his bat­tle­fields as a brave and fear­less man. When you are fight­ing what many con­ser­v­a­tives believe to be a biased media in their head­lines, you are fight­ing them on their turf, not retreat­ing, sur­ren­der­ing, or sim­ply mus­ing off in your own lit­tle pro­tected, right-​leaning cor­ner of the media world.

If I had to pick the blog­ger that most reminded me of Andrew, it would be Dan

A few months ago, I’d called or texted Bre­it­bart about some­thing and left my cell-​phone in the kitchen, plugged in to re-​charge, while I worked in my home office. So the phone rang and my son Jef­fer­son answered, then brought the phone to me. Andrew and I talked a while and, after I’d hung up the phone, Jef­fer­son said: “Wow, Dad, you know Andrew Breitbart?”

A lot of peo­ple knew Andrew Bre­it­bart. He loved to meet peo­ple, to hang out and social­ize. Among those whom you could call “celebri­ties” in the con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment, he was the most acces­si­ble per­son I knew, no mat­ter how famous he became.

In the Fall of 2008, I was unem­ployed. In addi­tion to look­ing for full time work, I was immers­ing myself in con­ser­v­a­tive new media. I had heard of Andrew Bre­it­bart through his appear­ances on Red Eye and his work with Matt Drudge but back then his name wasn’t nearly as ubiq­ui­tous as it is today. Even so, when I read a news story that said Bre­it­bart was launch­ing a new group blog called BIG Hol­ly­wood, I was excited by the idea. With­out expect­ing much, I emailed him. All I said was that I heard about BIG Hol­ly­wood and I liked his idea. How can I help?

Less than ten min­utes later, he wrote back.

“Thanks for writ­ing. Here’s my cell num­ber… call me.”

You have to under­stand, as a blog­ger I email other blog­gers and media peo­ple all the time. I never get a response like that so quickly. I was a lit­tle stunned but once I had a chance to gather my thoughts I called him and he answered.

“No, no, oh dear God, no”, I gasped, stand­ing in shock star­ing at the TV that I was walk­ing past in my kitchen when the news it aired stopped me in my tracks. A hand reflex­ively flew towards my mouth to sti­fle a sob as the tears fell from my eyes when my lit­tle boy came to my side and asked, “What’s wrong mommy? Are you sad? Do you need a tis­sue?” I looked down at my sweet lit­tle four year old and, after tak­ing a deep breath, I told him, “One of America’s Great­est Heroes has died” and my son hugged me and then ran to bring me some tissues.

Few peo­ple are indis­pen­si­ble to a cause, but Andrew Bre­it­bart was. There is no one else like him around. A good num­ber of com­men­ta­tors have been say­ing that we should honor him by car­ry­ing on his fight using the meth­ods he devel­oped, and they are cor­rect: we must not let his life’s work be in vain because his life’s work was to defeat the malig­nant forces of the Left and see Amer­ica restored to the ways of The Founders. How­ever, we have some mighty big shoes to fill, so it will not be easy.

One of the few trib­utes I dis­agree with. Andrew entire goal was to be replace­able, to have a 1000 Andrew Bre­it­barts chal­leng­ing the media at even the local town level.

It doesn’t mat­ter who we is, kemo sabe. It’s the con­ser­v­a­tives at Drudge, the lib­er­als at HuffPo, the left­ists at Dai­lyKos, the lib­er­tar­i­ans at Rea­son. It’s all of us and Bre­it­bart helped cre­ate and grow a series of do-​it-​yourself demon­stra­tion projects through which we can all speak more loudly and more fully.

I didn’t want to believe it, really. I per­son­ally know too many peo­ple I’d iden­tify as Democ­rats, if not lib­er­als, who are too decent to ever express such raw hate and cru­elty. But a large chunk of the rank and file of the Left — way more than a small per­cent­age — really don’t believe that their oppo­nents deserve any­thing resem­bling basic human dig­nity or respect.

We’re not really peo­ple to them. It’s not an acci­dent that New York Times colum­nist referred to his crit­ics on Twit­ter as “right-​wing lice.” They’re not good, decent Amer­i­cans who just have some dif­fer­ent ideas about how to make the world a bet­ter place. They run on hate.

My wife who has all the same inter­est in pol­i­tics that I have in Mor­ris Danc­ing was on face­book yes­ter­day and some­one made a remark about Breitbart’s death along those lines. It dis­gusted her and prompted her to comment.

If these guys are even get­ting my wife to speak up, then they’re mak­ing a huge mistake.

In an inter­view with The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, Sando says he arrived at the bar in the tony Brent­wood sec­tion of L.A. around 10 p.m. and soon the empty seat next to his was filled by a man with a famil­iar face. … Sando says the duo quickly struck up a con­ver­sa­tion that would last a lit­tle less than two hours.

“He was friendly and engag­ing,” Sando recalls. “I said, ‘You can’t be very happy with the slate of Repub­li­can can­di­dates’ and he said, ‘Why would you say that?’ I said, ‘Well, they’re talk­ing about con­tra­cep­tion,’ and he said, ‘The con­ver­sa­tion is being framed by the lib­eral media.’ I said, ‘Well, the media isn’t writ­ing Rick Santorum’s speeches for him.’ We had a back-​and-​forth for awhile until we said we weren’t going to agree on some things.”…

After the two hours, Bre­it­bart said he was leav­ing. “We exchanged con­tact infor­ma­tion,” Sando says. “We were going to get together.“

That is Andrew, engag­ing debat­ing and chal­leng­ing pre­con­ceived notions.

Part of it is his how much he inspired thou­sands of con­ser­v­a­tive activists, turned con­ser­vatism on its ear and com­pletely changed how we talk about pol­i­tics – all in a very short few years of promi­nence. The Left is scared out of its col­lec­tive mind that Andrew inspired the entire Cit­i­zen Jour­nal­ist Move­ment. ANDTHEYSHOULDBE.

That is the endur­ing legacy of Andrew Bre­it­bart and will be a thorn in the side of the left for decades.

the Post couldn’t even muster the curios­ity to Google the reac­tion. Twit­ter is a reli­ably volatile forum and col­lect­ing reac­tions there wouldn’t be a fair rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the reac­tion among Bre­it­bart oppo­nents, but Slate’s Matt Ygle­sias isn’t just some guy on Twit­ter, either, and he tweeted that “The world out­look is slightly improved with @AndrewBrietbart dead.” Some of his oppo­nents did han­dle the news in a pro­fes­sional and classy man­ner, includ­ing Media Mat­ters for Amer­ica, which gave a sur­pris­ingly humane response, much to their credit. How­ever, that was hardly the norm yes­ter­day, as the Post would have its read­ers believe — and the fact that they had to pre­mod­er­ate com­ments gave them a big clue as to what the actual reac­tion was.

These actions by a national news­pa­per try­ing to white­wash their allies is dis­hon­or­able and men­da­cious. I’m sure Andrew would phrase it a tad different.

One would think that 24 hours and 12 updates would be enough to tell the Andrew Breitbart story, but that just isn’t so:

I will update this post with a response to his post, “Liz Glover confronts Andrew Breitbart and Dana Loesch over GOProud ban,” since I only just read it today. However, I will point out that the fact that the reason she caught up with him was the dignity and respect he was showing to A Conservative Lesbian thoroughly spoils the leftist narrative. I’m guessing the last thing she expected was to have that argument directly with a conservative lesbian involved and fighting back, literally shoulder-to-shoulder with Andrew Breitbart.

Andrew was constantly the target of homophobic slurs from the tolerant left.

Well. As a typical average nobody, can I just say? It’s awesome when a bigger voice speaks for you. And that’s what Andrew Breitbart did. When nobody-ol’-me attended the Code Red anti-Obamacare rally, and promptly got accused of terrible racism, what good would my little tiny voice have done?

Not much. Enter Andrew Breitbart, who offered $100,000 to anyone who could provide evidence of this supposed outburst of racism. Of course, no such evidence existed. Because it was a lie.

60 Minutes won awards for hidden cameras, but when he used the same technique to embarrass liberals, such tactics were suddenly proclaimed ethically beyond the pale. The joke was on the scolds because they had to cover the stories anyway. And the stories got results. Congress defunded ACORN. Heads rolled at NPR. Andrew understood that news and arguments change politics if you can get the news and arguments to the people — and if you don’t let those who don’t like what you say define you.

that I was older and with a longer career in the news biz meant nothing to him, and it shouldn’t have. He understood something I didn’t — that the guildlike nature of media was about to shatter into a million pieces; gatekeepers like me (I was then editing these pages) would have to reconcile ourselves to the entry of amateurs who had something new and powerful to contribute, or we’d be crushed by the shattered glass.

But his vision extended beyond any single duke-out with any one Goliath. He was going after the whole Philistine gang. I remember standing with him on a corner in Westwood for a good portion of one afternoon, listening to him describe his long-term plans. He outlined the unfolding of the Bigs, which had then just begun, and went on to discuss the ways new media could break the Left’s stranglehold on culture and information to give the American public access to something closer to the truth. He even had a plan for a cultural think tank—a Great Good Place in Hollywood—where conservative artists could come for support and protection from the blacklists and beat-downs of the artistic establishment. I would be the think tank’s first president, he told me, an idea I found sweetly amusing then but which only makes my heart hurt now.

He has built an empire, Every blogger who fights the fight is a part of it.
Legal Insurrection proves that this is true:

Andrew lived in a world without restraints. He could be who he wanted to be, a luxury few bloggers have, particularly those who blog under their own name and work for others.

I live in a world of restraints, and I envied Andrew’s freedom more than you can know.

Andrew is irreplaceable, but we would serve his memory well to aspire to more freedom of thought and more freedom of action.

I’ve often wondered where to go with this blog. I now know.

To the left celebrating his death, people like William picking up the flag and going forward unafraid is the great nightmare.

Andrew Breitbart’s entire mission, both on Twitter and on his Big sites, was to say to the MSM, you don’t get the final word anymore. It’s now a conversation. We’ll consider what you report, and how you report it, and determine for ourselves how factually accurate it is. How well it matches up with our worldview. How well it matches up with modern “liberalism’s” mission statement that promises tolerance, diversity and multiculturalism — and if you can’t respect your neighbor, simply because he disagrees with you on the size and role of government, you’ve failed that mission statement. And when you’ve failed those objectives, we’ll call you out.

Breitbart knew instinctively, as people in Washington and most other places did not, that movies, television programs, and popular music send out deeply political messages every hour of every day. They shape the culture, and then the culture shapes politics. Influence those films and TV shows and songs, and you’ll eventually influence politics.

The Left had known that for generations, but on the Right, so many people in politics thought only about politics. To Breitbart, that was folly. “The people who have money, every four years at the last possible second, are told, ‘You need to give millions of dollars, because these four counties in Ohio are going to determine the election,’” Breitbart told the National Policy Council in October 2009. “I am saying, why didn’t we invest 20 years ago in a movie studio in Hollywood, why didn’t we invest in creating television shows, why didn’t we create institutions that would reflect and affirm that which is good about America?”

There is one video I shot of Andrew that directly reflects this. It never got the attention it deserved.

It’s significant that Andrew picked his battlefields as a brave and fearless man. When you are fighting what many conservatives believe to be a biased media in their headlines, you are fighting them on their turf, not retreating, surrendering, or simply musing off in your own little protected, right-leaning corner of the media world.

If I had to pick the blogger that most reminded me of Andrew, it would be Dan

A few months ago, I’d called or texted Breitbart about something and left my cell-phone in the kitchen, plugged in to re-charge, while I worked in my home office. So the phone rang and my son Jefferson answered, then brought the phone to me. Andrew and I talked a while and, after I’d hung up the phone, Jefferson said: “Wow, Dad, you know Andrew Breitbart?”

A lot of people knew Andrew Breitbart. He loved to meet people, to hang out and socialize. Among those whom you could call “celebrities” in the conservative movement, he was the most accessible person I knew, no matter how famous he became.

In the Fall of 2008, I was unemployed. In addition to looking for full time work, I was immersing myself in conservative new media. I had heard of Andrew Breitbart through his appearances on Red Eye and his work with Matt Drudge but back then his name wasn’t nearly as ubiquitous as it is today. Even so, when I read a news story that said Breitbart was launching a new group blog called BIG Hollywood, I was excited by the idea. Without expecting much, I emailed him. All I said was that I heard about BIG Hollywood and I liked his idea. How can I help?

Less than ten minutes later, he wrote back.

“Thanks for writing. Here’s my cell number… call me.”

You have to understand, as a blogger I email other bloggers and media people all the time. I never get a response like that so quickly. I was a little stunned but once I had a chance to gather my thoughts I called him and he answered.

“No, no, oh dear God, no”, I gasped, standing in shock staring at the TV that I was walking past in my kitchen when the news it aired stopped me in my tracks. A hand reflexively flew towards my mouth to stifle a sob as the tears fell from my eyes when my little boy came to my side and asked, “What’s wrong mommy? Are you sad? Do you need a tissue?” I looked down at my sweet little four year old and, after taking a deep breath, I told him, “One of America’s Greatest Heroes has died” and my son hugged me and then ran to bring me some tissues.

Few people are indispensible to a cause, but Andrew Breitbart was. There is no one else like him around. A good number of commentators have been saying that we should honor him by carrying on his fight using the methods he developed, and they are correct: we must not let his life’s work be in vain because his life’s work was to defeat the malignant forces of the Left and see America restored to the ways of The Founders. However, we have some mighty big shoes to fill, so it will not be easy.

One of the few tributes I disagree with. Andrew entire goal was to be replaceable, to have a 1000 Andrew Breitbarts challenging the media at even the local town level.

It doesn’t matter who we is, kemo sabe. It’s the conservatives at Drudge, the liberals at HuffPo, the leftists at DailyKos, the libertarians at Reason. It’s all of us and Breitbart helped create and grow a series of do-it-yourself demonstration projects through which we can all speak more loudly and more fully.

I didn’t want to believe it, really. I personally know too many people I’d identify as Democrats, if not liberals, who are too decent to ever express such raw hate and cruelty. But a large chunk of the rank and file of the Left — way more than a small percentage — really don’t believe that their opponents deserve anything resembling basic human dignity or respect.

We’re not really people to them. It’s not an accident that New York Times columnist referred to his critics on Twitter as “right-wing lice.” They’re not good, decent Americans who just have some different ideas about how to make the world a better place. They run on hate.

My wife who has all the same interest in politics that I have in Morris Dancing was on facebook yesterday and someone made a remark about Breitbart’s death along those lines. It disgusted her and prompted her to comment.

If these guys are even getting my wife to speak up, then they’re making a huge mistake.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Sando says he arrived at the bar in the tony Brentwood section of L.A. around 10 p.m. and soon the empty seat next to his was filled by a man with a familiar face.
…
Sando says the duo quickly struck up a conversation that would last a little less than two hours.

“He was friendly and engaging,” Sando recalls. “I said, ‘You can’t be very happy with the slate of Republican candidates’ and he said, ‘Why would you say that?’ I said, ‘Well, they’re talking about contraception,’ and he said, ‘The conversation is being framed by the liberal media.’ I said, ‘Well, the media isn’t writing Rick Santorum’s speeches for him.’ We had a back-and-forth for awhile until we said we weren’t going to agree on some things.”…

After the two hours, Breitbart said he was leaving. “We exchanged contact information,” Sando says. “We were going to get together.”

That is Andrew, engaging debating and challenging preconceived notions.

Part of it is his how much he inspired thousands of conservative activists, turned conservatism on its ear and completely changed how we talk about politics – all in a very short few years of prominence. The Left is scared out of its collective mind that Andrew inspired the entire Citizen Journalist Movement. AND THEY SHOULD BE.

That is the enduring legacy of Andrew Breitbart and will be a thorn in the side of the left for decades.

the Post couldn’t even muster the curiosity to Google the reaction. Twitter is a reliably volatile forum and collecting reactions there wouldn’t be a fair representation of the reaction among Breitbart opponents, but Slate’s Matt Yglesias isn’t just some guy on Twitter, either, and he tweeted that “The world outlook is slightly improved with @AndrewBrietbart dead.” Some of his opponents did handle the news in a professional and classy manner, including Media Matters for America, which gave a surprisingly humane response, much to their credit. However, that was hardly the norm yesterday, as the Post would have its readers believe — and the fact that they had to premoderate comments gave them a big clue as to what the actual reaction was.

These actions by a national newspaper trying to whitewash their allies is dishonorable and mendacious. I’m sure Andrew would phrase it a tad different.

It was said about Milton Friedman, I think, that you knew how important he was because even if people hadn’t heard of him, they knew of his ideas. I’m pretty sure that if I were to tell my dad that Andrew Breitbart died, and that this is a huge deal, he would respond with, “Who is Andrew Breitbart?” But if I were to say, “The guy who took down ACORN and Anthony Weiner, the guy who offered $100,000 to anyone who had cell phone video of racist remarks made by Tea Partiers, the guy who [etc]” he would know who I was talking about.

I think Andrew would be surprised by the outpouring of attention…surprised and pleased. He made a difference in all of us. He is who Lisa and I saw in Mesquite, TX in 2010 that brought us to CPAC last year. He inspired those he spoke with and he had a real talent of talking to everyone. I will miss him.

As for the plan by some Kossacks to get the Westboro Baptist Church to protest Breitbart’s funeral, I am pretty sure Andrew would say: Bring it on! If only that they revealed again how vile they really are. I think he would treat such a protest as a badge of honor.

I wish this was all an elaborate hoax and Andrew Breitbart will surprise us in October with a bunch of great stuff. Sadly that is not the case.

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